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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549365">Heaven's Light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverQuill/pseuds/CleverQuill'>CleverQuill</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera &amp; Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Catholic, Catholicism, Childhood, Communion | Eucharist, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Communion, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, France (Country), Gen, I'm not Catholic, Love, Parenthood, Sacrament, Sacrifice, Slice of Life, give me grace if i goof on some parts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:02:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverQuill/pseuds/CleverQuill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Christine and Erik found piece in a far off village where they can make music and raise a family.  But as the oldest child prepares for her First Communion, she starts asking questions and making requests that could disrupt the household's tender harmony.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heaven's Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/gifts">paperandsong</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102058">Le roi de Lahore</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong">paperandsong</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It helps to read Paperandsong's Le roi de Lahore Ch. 20-21to understand this story. (Though I implore to read the entire story.  Gore, sex, exotic lands, redemption, morning sickness -it has it all!!!)</p><p>I've been stewing this story for a few months, hesitant to post it.  But recently I decided I shouldn't let perfection be the enemy of satisfaction.  The hardest part is trying to match Paperandsong's style of writing; some parts I feel more successful at than some others. Like the Venus de Milo with it's missing arms and color, I pray you look find enrichment, entertainment, and beauty despite the flaws.</p><p>I intend to have the other chapters up in a fortnight.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ch. 1 The Strange Family<br/>
Christine bites through the ache as she shifts on the bed.  Red spots of fresh blood in the bedsheets remain to be embarrassing and concerning, even though she knows the shadow of Death has passed by.  The only balm to her discomfort is witnessing Erik hold small Aurelie in one of his bony hands. The thin fingertip of the other brushes over the ginger skin of her lips, cheeks and nose.  He wrapped her in thick blanket to protect the tiny body from his cold flesh.  His hand stills, and his whole person trembles.  Christine can see the eyes behind the mask growing wet.  She asks what troubles him.  “I am… I -I have no memory of my father.  I do not know how to be one.”<br/>
…<br/>
The baby cries for the fourth time that night.<br/>
Erik emerges from his workroom and sees that girl, Anais, is dead asleep on the sofa.  Christine huddles in a char.  She shakes from exhaustion, clutching onto the shrieking creature, and vainly speaks sweet words to it.  She murmurs how nursing and a fresh change didn’t sooth the child, and maybe they need the doctor.  He gathers the squeamish being in his bony hand, and wipes away the wetness from her violently red face.  As if a spell casts upon her, Christine falls asleep in the char.<br/>
Throughout his daughters screams, Erik rekindles a weak ember in the fireplace.  As the room warms, he sings softly one of his wife’s Scandinavian songs.  Erik does not know all the words, but he sings with the confidence as if he wrote it himself.<br/>
Aurelie’s arms push out of her swaddling.  Her small fingers finds one of her papa’s cool fingers and stuffs it in her fat maw.  Greedily she sucks.  Erik pulls it away, and sees a small fang piercing its way out.   He pushes the finger into her mouth to sooth the babe’s sore gums.  Her dark eyes grow heavy with content.<br/>
“It is one tooth, but soon you will have more teeth than your papa.”  Erik pulls back his mask, bearing a grin from his skeleton face, showing rows of chipped and missing teeth.  Aurelie’s dark eyes grow wide and petrified.  In his shame Erik covers his face. “Your papa is a stupid monster.  A stupid stupid monster!  You will never have to see your papa’s deathly face ever-“<br/>
His head snaps to delicate sounds.  The girl wakes from her dead slumber.  Erik stands up and looks down at Anais, a dark dominance over the already sheepishly tired young woman.  “Her teeth are growing,” he hands the now content creature to the girl’s arms.  “Yes Misuser.” She murmurs.<br/>
“Do not let my daughter cry again.”<br/>
Anais apologizes and whisks away to babe’s room.<br/>
…<br/>
Aurelie pokes two holes in the seaweed and presses it onto her face.<br/>
Her fat legs plow through the sand pass mamma towards the dark giant further down the shore.  “Papa, look!  Now I am like you.”  Erik wipes the green off her more harshly than he intends.  “You don’t need that.  Your face is beautiful.”  She is disappointed at the violent destruction of her creation but raises no protest.   She looks at the destroyed vegetated mask.  “Papa, why do you cover your head?”<br/>
A cold chill pass through Christine.<br/>
Aurelie was bound to ask that question, but she ever worries how her husband will react.  Even if he promises to never make their child cry.  Christine holds her daughter’s shoulders from behind.  Her eyes hooded, ready to snap back at any ill temperament.  Erik takes no notice of his wife. “To guard myself.  My skin is feeble and damaged, and my face is unfinished.”<br/>
“Can you take it off?”<br/>
“I don’t take it off.”<br/>
“But-“<br/>
“I tire of the beach.  Go play with your mother.”  He kisses her forehead and his wife’s mouth and makes haste back to the house.  Christine gives a silent prayer of thanks for the uneventful moment.<br/>
…<br/>
Christine gathers her grace when Erik howls her name from across the house.  She sees him gingerly lay their fine clothing into a chest.  “We are going to Paris.  Tell the girl to watch Aurelie for three nights.”  His wife stands stiff with shock.<br/>
“Now?”<br/>
“Now.”<br/>
“Why do we leave for Paris.”<br/>
“I have stayed from the Opera Popular too long.  They have gone lax and lazy without my influence.” He holds up a crumpled Parisian newspaper. “A review of Die Walkure.  The critic likens Brunhilda’s voice to mirth.”<br/>
“And that is reason enough to travel to Paris?  And maybe cause havoc?”<br/>
“A passionate, noble, warrior’s voice should not have mirth.  She should have a voice of refinement and thunder.  And there will be havoc,” He sees her cold face. “But I will harm not one hair on their heads.”<br/>
Before they leave, Christine kisses Aurelie’s warm lips and exchanges words of love.  Erik kisses her black crown, so she will not see his dead mouth.  With all her might Aurelie wraps her fat arms around their legs.<br/>
Their souls sour as the small white house vanishes.  Christine cannot wait for Aurelie to be old enough for trips to the city.<br/>
The take their place in Box 5 after passing through their dark passage. They are hardly captivated by the show.  Erik holds his dissatisfaction more nakedly than Christine.  She stays reverent her chair, whereas he fiddles with a white Chinese fan or run his hands along his wife’s body.   Between acts Erik slips from his seat, gesturing his wife to stay put.  He returns with a dusty bottle and cobwebs marking his fine black jacket.<br/>
They share the drink throughout second act.<br/>
At the last act, their cheeks are pink and struggle to sit with dignity.  Erik slumps his bald head on to Christine’s shoulder.<br/>
“No one should be happy picking up dead body parts,” he mutters.<br/>
“Hush, their joy is to collect the dead.”  He twists his neck, pressing against her ear.<br/>
“You would sing 'hojotoho' better in the throes of drunkenness.”<br/>
Christine fights her voice to be quiet and steady. “I am trying to watch the performance.”<br/>
“You are board of the performance.  Please wife, lead this miserable corpse to the pagan halls of eternal joy.  Please, for this is my hell.”<br/>
“And how shall I do that, my poor corpse?”<br/>
Strong thin fingers slid up her leg.  She doesn’t hate the performance like her husband, but it does not captivate her.  Christine pulls him behind the chairs onto the red carpet.  Erik buries his upper body in a sea of creamy lace.  Oh, if only Christine chose the red dress instead!<br/>
“Sing the battle cry of the Valkyries, sing it!  Your teacher demands it!”<br/>
“My teacher is drunk and on all fours.”<br/>
He retaliates with a lover’s bite.  Timing their bodily actions to the forceful music of Wagner, they come to Valhalla.<br/>
The following morning, a stagehand finds an altar of carnage on the stage.  Wooden weapons, armor, and shields lay in a pile of fraying and spitered wood.  A note in violent red handwriting hangs impaled on the remains of Wotan’s spear.<br/>
…<br/>
Christine’s golden hair glows like a gentle fire from the morning light.  He sat up in bed watching her sleeping warm form.  If being in the light had only one benefit.<br/>
He presses his dead lips to her living ones.<br/>
Christine violently snaps from her sleeping position, and retches sour bile all over the bed.  Erik tries to sooth with a bony embrace, but Christine pulls away.  His stink is poison!<br/>
She hobbles to the window for fresh air and to spit out rancid fluid.  When the tears and spasms pass, she turns to see the soiled bedding removed.  In place a simple clean dress.<br/>
When she awoke sick again, a dark feeling grip their hearts.<br/>
Dr Bisset cautions for Christine to relax, save be grim shade of death comes to claim his prize.  The music students were sent away.  Anais spends all her days at the house again, weighting on Christine hand and foot and performing chores.  Christine moves only when she needs to and eats strong bitter foods her husband claims will do good.  She consumes them more out of love of her husband than necessity for her wellness.<br/>
Erik kept his eyes open to any deathly shadows.<br/>
As Christine swells, Aurelie bring flowers and treasures from the beach into the starlight room.  She spreads a small hand and feel for the child.  “Shall I have a brother or a sister mamma?”<br/>
“I do not know, love.”<br/>
“I wish for a sister.”<br/>
“It is a sweet desire, but we must accept whatever God blesses us with.”<br/>
Christine awakens with sweet smell and wetness.  In his stubbornness the strange husband stays with his wife while the Nurse and Dr Bisset assist the labor. She curses and crushes his hands through the thundering pains of birthing.<br/>
Golden evening sunlight pass through the now peaceful room.  The mosaic stars shine their joy over the relieved family and village healers.  No shadows were found, the pregnancy was blessedly uneventful.  The baby was a boy.   Another demon child with rings of fat and blond curls. He was already washed and asleep on his mother’s gentle breast when the nurse chimes for Aurelie.  She and the doctor quietly clean up.  In practical fashion Aurelie scatters a bundle of crushed flowers on the dresser.  She looks at what possessed the attention of her parents.  Erik reaches for the sticky blond curls, brushing them back to see his son’s face better.  Tears fall from his mask.  Aurelie took hold of his free hand in both of hers.  She stares at the small warm flesh that must be called brother.<br/>
“He is small.”<br/>
Her mother sighs, “All new creatures are.”<br/>
“Was I so small?”<br/>
“Papa could hold you in one hand.”  Aurelie looks down at the cold hand she holds.  Erik releases it and pulls her closer.  She shivers at the coldness but doesn’t let go.<br/>
The boy is named Richard, in memory of the night he was conceived.<br/>
…<br/>
By virtue of a new babe, Mamma’s and Anais’ attention were all on Richard.  She looks away from a book of pictures and simple words.  The library felt large and cold without anyone else with her.  Craving companionship, she dares to venture into her papa’s dark workshop.  “I am alone, papa.” She says when he demands the reason why she interrupts his work.  The bitterness of irritation dissolves when she expressed her isolation.  Guiding his child to his desk, he requests silence while he works.  The hours are spent watching him compose.  When nighttime comes, Erik takes his daughters delicate fingers and guides her to the beach.<br/>
Time with papa became ritual for Aurelie.  When she finds herself unwanted, she goes to papa’ room.  Some days she would listen to his playing or pen scratching.  She brought down paper and wax crayons.  She drew what images came to her mind.  And some others papa would set her down and make her play till her hands tire.  Erik never uncovers his deathly face.  Christine ran her fingers on the sinister red welts around the hole in his cheek.  “You cannot keep your mask on all day.  She must find other means of entertainment.”  Erik thought back to old memories.  Him pushed in dark rooms all for so-called convenience.  He keeps it all in his heart.  She would not understand.  All she speaks about her parentage are happy memories.  He pressed his hand in the hallow place between her legs to forget longstanding pains.<br/>
…<br/>
The shining stars in the black sky expanded to eternity.  It filled the young girl with wonder.  Aurelie raises her fat arms up.  “Upon your shoulders papa!”  Erik scoops her onto his strong shoulders.  Her young legs kick at his chest as she struggles to reach high above her head.<br/>
“Papa, return to the house.”<br/>
“Daughter we just gone down to the beach.”<br/>
“But on your shoulders and on the roof I can reach the stars.”<br/>
“You cannot reach the stars, even if you grow to a mountain.”<br/>
“Why can’t I reach the stars?”<br/>
“The stars are God’s.  They are heaven’s light.  We cannot dare reach and touch them.  We can only look at them.”<br/>
Her eyes remain fixed on the vast glitter on velvet.  “Another night we can look at the stars I made for your mamma.  They are not God’s.  You can touch them.”  That contents her hears desires.<br/>
She implores for a swim.  Erik humors her fleeting mind.  He strips to his undergarments and mask.  He then helps his daughter out of her day clothes (least face scorn from mamma for spoiling them with salt water).  Aurelie walks into the water, till her young body can barely hold against the ocean’s aggression. Her papa follows in long silent strides, watching as his child flounders.  Aurelie is never lost in the dark when her papa is around.  His skin glows in the moonlight like a ghost.  Sometimes she thinks he is a living crucifix.<br/>
She swaddles herself in papa’s shirt when she tires of swimming, watching as he swims deeper into the water, keeping his masked head above choppy water.  Once their desire of swimming fulfilled, Erik carries his daughter in thin strong arms.  Her cheeks feel the rumble of his voice.  “Hear the sounds daughter.  Hear the hiss of the foam, the boom of the waves, and the cry of the rocks struck by water.  Hear them and feel what the sound does to your soul.  Can you feel it Aurelie?”  Her tired head rests on his neck.  “It is heaven.”<br/>
In bed, Aurelie obediently closes her eyes and feels papa’s kiss on her head.<br/>
…<br/>
Erik stands closely to Christine’s shadow during Richard’s baptism.  She and her daughter wore matching rose pink dresses and himself a crisp black suit. He feels the curious eyes of the congregation on him.  Insufferable fools!  The day should be about the babies, not the strange husband of Cecil standing in The House of God.<br/>
Delicate women hold perfumed gloves and salts up to their noses.<br/>
How he aches to bury his face in the sanctuary of her curls and forget everyone, but he was forced to promise he will behave during the sacred ritual.  He groans.  Christine looks icily over the baby’s shoulder.<br/>
After the baptism, he sat with his offspring and Naud family.  Richard slouches in Anais’ arms fast asleep.  Aurelie reaches over and presses her fingers around his.  The tight chord in his chest snaps, and warmth floods in.  He holds her hand back.  In the benediction song, he carries his voice over the whole congregation.  At the organ Christine blushes at her husband’s vulgar display of talent.  Aurelie pulls his pantleg, imploring him to sing louder.<br/>
The building quivers from the godly powerful voice.<br/>
…<br/>
Anais cradles the strange family’s daily wash from the far-off house to the village.<br/>
She hopes the young man with the full beard will be by the road.<br/>
Aurelie tottles behind, hold the rest of the wash, singing a wild song.  The woman irritably turns around with the singing fades away; a sure knowing young Aurelie doddles behind.  The image she beholds instead causes her to drop the basket of soiled clothing all along unpaved ground.  Aurelie’s load of wash is abandoned.  In small hands, she holds up the stiff, twisted, corpse of a bird.<br/>
It was bland brown all over, except for a blazing true-blue breast the child’s fingers brush over.  Its dead stink isn’t any different from the smell at home.  “Isn’t it so beautiful.  May I take it with me, Anais?”  The housekeeper snatches the death thing from Aurelie’s hands and throws it into the tall grass.  “It is dead!  Do no touch dead things.  Collect the wash and continue on.”  Anais dreads she will have no suiters if seen with a child holding dead animals.  This child will be her ruin!  She was a sweet babe, but her strangeness is showing.  She should stay in the house like her papa.   Filled with embarrassment and sorrow, Aurelie gathers the clothing and continues.<br/>
…<br/>
The stars in the room glow white from the moon.  He presses his dead noseless face into his wife's hair, smelling the perfume and sweat.<br/>
“I believe it is time for Aurelie to begin her education.”<br/>
Erik groans.  “No governess.  Too many people come to the house already.”<br/>
“She won’t need a governess. It’s-”<br/>
“Do you think to send her to school?” Visions of his precious daughter spirited away to a boarding school invades his skull like a menacing parasite.  Away from her mamma and papa and the beach. Crying alone in a dorm.  Erik curls towards his wife, holding tight to the blanket as to shield his heart.  His eyes burned.  “No, do not take my daughter away!”<br/>
Christine shares her husband’s grief.  She also fears the day Aurelie will leave them.  Her small hand reaches over and smooth the silk garment along his back.   “I speak of her religious education, at the church.  It’s time for her to learn about communion.”  The bones of his hands released the bedding.  He is embarrassed, but his heart fills with warm relief.<br/>
…<br/>
Richard gleefully stakes a short tower of smooth sea stones.  They are sticky with frosting.  His sister plays a happy song on the piano.  She tucks her legs underneath so she could reach the keys.  Her hands crawl over the piano keys in ways confounding their childish appearance.  Christine smiles.  M. Lemieux coughs for her attention.<br/>
“Such a beautiful song.  Do you teach your daughter, too?” She refills a delicate cup of tea and bites in so a pink, sweet, treat.<br/>
“No, my husband does.”<br/>
“I did not know your M. Garnier teaches.”<br/>
“Only to his Aurelie.  He has no patience for others.”<br/>
“Will he teach Richard?”<br/>
“He will try. Richard is not enchanted by art like his sister.  He will watch and listen, but he is not driven to touch the instrument or sing.”  What a strange family.  The black sheep is not the artist.  But Mss. Lemieux has long accepted the bohemian family’s character.  Even M. Garnier, who is the strangest of all men, doesn't drive her to quake in fear like most others. “Sometimes children change.”  She says.  Christine smiles sadly and agrees.  They are still so small, and so easy to love and be loved in return.  She vainly wishes in her heart the children don’t change any more, for her sake and her unstable husband’s.<br/>
…<br/>
The next outing is less pleasant.<br/>
Red-faced and twisted, the mother speaks of Aurelie whispering dark, violent, tales from the Orient to the other children.  She speaks of beheadings, skinnings, and poisoned books that burn the fingers off the reader.  Christine confronts her husband for filling their daughter’s mind with violence.  He hisses, “My stories are tame as yours.”<br/>
“Do not lie-”<br/>
“I do not Lie!  I will not fill her pure mind such dark tales.  Our children will not know the darkness!”  Christine bites her tongue.  When confronted, Aurelie admits reading the violent story from the library.  In the blackest hour of night, Erik digs a hole in the sand.  Every obscene book in the library burns in the hole.  The blazing pages flutter into the sky.  They become ash in the wind before reaching the stars.<br/>
…<br/>
Erik barters himself in the solitude of his basement.  Insufferable sounds of young feet irritates his patience.  The children are not allowed to roam the house.  But they defiantly do; he suffers it willingly.  It is Aurelie’s birthday.  She desires to have the village children over for cake and games.<br/>
He pens out the music in his head to bear the time.  As the minutes passes by, a tiny knock raps.  His heart stills to see his daughter.  “You should be with your little friends.”  Her brow crumples and cries.  Erik collapses to his knees, brushing away the wet tears coming down her face.  “No, no, nooo!  Why do you cry?”<br/>
“None will play with me.  They sit and listen to mamma’s stories instead.”  Erik’s heart groans.  His child isolated by her own mother.  “Stay with me daughter.” Erik leads her to his desk, provided with drawing tools.  “May you play something?  Something that is like the sea at night?”  Willingly, with all his heart, his bones stretch over the keyboard.  The music is sweet medicine to Aurelie’s soul.  The sting of bitterness melts from her heart.  In unspoken amount of time Christine steps down to their refuge.  “Dear daughter, please go up and say goodbye to your guests.”  Obediently, Aurelie wipes black smears on the desk and bounces upstairs.<br/>
Before Christine disappears, too, her husband opens his mouth. “Aurelie says none of the children play with her.  They rather listen to your stories.”  She puts on a sugary smile.  “Story telling is normal for children’s parties.”<br/>
“She wept!<br/>
Even I know that is not normal for children’s parties.”<br/>
She sighs, wringing her wedding band.  “Some of the children were leaving already.  I started telling stories to keep them longer.”<br/>
“Why is the child’s mother more liked than the child itself among her peers?  She is a beautiful child!  She shouldn’t be alone!”  He slouches, burying his head in his hands.  Even with all his power and influence, he cannot amend his child’s problems.  Loneliness must be a rite in this family.<br/>
“Angel,” Christine seeks for uncontentious words.  To even whisper their daughter’s strangeness as the source of her loneliness is to speak for someone’s death.  They are hardly different than his oddities and faults.  Erik posture remains crippled in the chair with grief and shame.  Her hands rest on his sharp shoulders.  “She will find her place in this world, even as we have.  Please don’t have her papa give up on her.”  He pulls off his mask and cries into her sleeve.<br/>
…<br/>
The priest took a lengthy walk to the small home far away from the rest of the village.  Rarely he is fearful, and even at this house of mystery, he is not afraid.  When he first knocked on the front door many years ago, no one answered, though he hears muted voices inside.  This time, when no one answers his knock, he opens the door at a crack.  “M. Garnier, I know you are home, sir.”  Everyone knows he is always home.<br/>
In a blink of an eye the sea-weathered door swings wide open.  The masked face of Erik blankly stares down at the smaller man.  The brazenness of this man coming into the house! If Christine did not love where she lives, he would have strangled the priest where he stands.  “What is it?”<br/>
“M. Garnier,” He starts.<br/>
Erik remains silent, waiting for the petty words the priest wants to say.  “Your voice haunts me ever since hearing it at the baptism.  It is in my prayers and in my dreams.  Even in my very bones!<br/>
Heaven willing, I have a request.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you have a questions or comments, tell me, please!!!  That is how I'll improve as a writer.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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